Black Agenda Radio – 03.04.19

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Both Republicans and Democrats in the US claim it’s alright to threaten Venezuela with invasion, because its not a democracy. But we’ll talk with a veteran Black activist who was an official observer of democracy in action in Venezuela. And, a call for the abolition of poverty, by getting rid of the class that is hoarding all the wealth.

Angela Davis, the human rights activist, was initially disinvited from an event of the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis’s home town, apparently because of her support for Palestinian rights. The month before, CNN fired Mark Lamont Hill for supporting Palestinians in a speech at the United Nations. We spoke with Michael Fischbach, a professor of history at Randolph-Macon College and author of a new book titled “Black Power and Palestine.” Fischbach says Black American empathy with Palestinians and Arabs is nothing new.

The South American nation of Venezuela has held more elections in the past 20 years than any other nation in the western hemisphere, and maybe the entire world. But the corporate media and both political parties in the United States insist that Venezuela’s socialist government is a dictatorship. President Trump has seized billions in Venezuelan assets, and is threatening military action. In Greenville, South Carolina, Efia Nwangaza is a people’s lawyer and director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination. Nwangaza was among the international observers that have verified all of Venezuela’s elections as free and fair.

The popular backlash against deepening economic inequality gets more intense by the day. William Anderson is co-author of a book titled, “As Black as Resistance: Finding Conditions for Liberation.” In an article in Truthout, Anderson said it’s time to heed Dr. Martin Luther King’s call for the abolition of poverty.